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Best scout

iBlameGriff

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Mar 24, 2025
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Who is the best hockey scout in the world today in your opinion ? Anyone with a podcast perhaps if I want to see good takes on the upcoming prospects ?

I know there’s Simon Boisvert who have a podcast, he used to be a scout for the Screaming Eagles in the QMJHL so I guess he’s a solid one, but maybe there’s better ones out there.
 
Hakan Andersson earned himself a forever legacy after the Datsyuk/Zetterberg picks.

Then add in guys like Hudler, (58th) Filppula, (95th) Ericsson, (291st) Franzen, (97th) Nyquist, (114th) and Tatar (60th) and he you can see he had a decent tear during the 2000s picking up long term NHLers beyond the Top 50 picks.

... Which makes it all the more hilarious that Ken Holland turned away from him and started trusting Tyler Wright. The results speak for themselves.
 
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iBlameGriff said:
Who is the best hockey scout in the world today in your opinion ? Anyone with a podcast perhaps if I want to see good takes on the upcoming prospects ?

I know there’s Simon Boisvert who have a podcast, he used to be a scout for the Screaming Eagles in the QMJHL so I guess he’s a solid one, but maybe there’s better ones out there.
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Not sure if you'll find a better one than a Q teams midget AAA area scout with 3 years experioence over a decade ago
 
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Realgud said:
Lolll he did get a lot of hate for that... but also for placing Zadina relatively low at the time. You win some and you lose some 😬
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Ehh. He had Zadina at 18th, but still 5th among 2018 draftees, and still ahead of Brady, Dobson, and Hughes lol. Not exactly a win.
 
Hakan Andersson & Joe McDonnell come to mind for me. Andersson is my modern GOAT.

I've also liked a lot of Mark Yannetti, Judd Brackett, & Al Murray's scouting for extended periods of time. Think Yannetti flies under the radar because the Kings' player development hasn't been ideal, making Yannetti look worse than he is.
 
FriendlyGhost92 said:
Hakan Andersson earned himself a forever legacy after the Datsyuk/Zetterberg picks.

Then add in guys like Hudler, (58th) Filppula, (95th) Ericsson, (291st) Franzen, (97th) Nyquist, (114th) and Tatar (60th) and he you can see he had a decent tear during the 2000s picking up long term NHLers beyond the Top 50 picks.

... Which makes it all the more hilarious that Ken Holland turned away from him and started trusting Tyler Wright. The results speak for themselves.
Click to expand...

I do enjoy Andersson's story about Datsyuk and how that was a bit accidental since he was scouting Dmitri Kalinin for the 1998 Draft. Datsyuk was on the opposing team and Andersson made a mental note to try to catch Datsyuk again. Andersson said it was like a three day travel ordeal to see Datsyuk play a home game and that it didn't make sense for most scouts to do that for a potential late round pick. Andersson thought he might have been one of the few NHL scouts who saw Datsyuk that season (and even then only a handful of times) since he was already 20 and hadn't been featured previously on Russia's tournament teams.

Andersson wanted to see Datsyuk one more time and he noticed a few other rival scouts on the flight, but the plane had engine problems and never took off. I think Andersson joked about history maybe being different had that flight gone through. If I recall correctly, Andersson fully admitted that he had no idea Datsyuk would become what he became otherwise they wouldn't have waited until the 6th round.

I had to double check THN's 2002 Draft guide. I seemed to remember there being a debate between Pierre-Marc Bouchard (ranked #11) or Jiri Hudler (ranked #13) being the best undersized offensive forward. Then on draft day Hudler somehow dropped to Detroit at #58. I was floored when that happened.

And then there was the amusing story that Andersson liked Alexander Edler in 2004. Edler was an occasional healthy scratch, so Andersson called up somebody on the team to make sure Edler was playing so that he didn't have to make a long drive for nothing. But then word got out that Detroit was interested. Presumably Detroit might have taken Edler with #97 but then Vancouver traded up to #91 for Edler. Detroit ended up with a decent enough consolation prize with Johan Franzen.
 
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Brodeur said:
I do enjoy Andersson's story about Datsyuk and how that was a bit accidental since he was scouting Dmitri Kalinin for the 1998 Draft. Datsyuk was on the opposing team and Andersson made a mental note to try to catch Datsyuk again. Andersson said it was like a three day travel ordeal to see Datsyuk play a home game and that it didn't make sense for most scouts to do that for a potential late round pick. Andersson thought he might have been one of the few NHL scouts who saw Datsyuk that season (and even then only a handful of times) since he was already 20 and hadn't been featured previously on Russia's tournament teams.

Andersson wanted to see Datsyuk one more time and he noticed a few other rival scouts on the flight, but the plane had engine problems and never took off. I think Andersson joked about history maybe being different had that flight gone through. If I recall correctly, Andersson fully admitted that he had no idea Datsyuk would become what he became otherwise they wouldn't have waited until the 6th round.

I had to double check THN's 2002 Draft guide. I seemed to remember there being a debate between Pierre-Marc Bouchard (ranked #11) or Jiri Hudler (ranked #13) being the best undersized offensive forward. Then on draft day Hudler somehow dropped to Detroit at #58. I was floored when that happened.

And then there was the amusing story that Andersson liked Alexander Edler in 2004. Edler was an occasional healthy scratch, so Andersson called up somebody on the team to make sure Edler was playing so that he didn't have to make a long drive for nothing. But then word got out that Detroit was interested. Presumably Detroit might have taken Edler with #97 but then Vancouver traded up to #91 for Edler. Detroit ended up with a decent enough consolation prize with Johan Franzen.
Click to expand...

Shit I completely forgot the Edler story.
 
Hockeyville USA said:
Hakan Andersson & Joe McDonnell come to mind for me. Andersson is my modern GOAT.

I've also liked a lot of Mark Yannetti, Judd Brackett, & Al Murray's scouting for extended periods of time. Think Yannetti flies under the radar because the Kings' player development hasn't been ideal, making Yannetti look worse than he is.
Click to expand...

I do like that Yannetti will do podcasts and he'll leave some fun tidbits. Several years back, I was listening to one where the host asked him about a time when they got sniped on a pick. Yannetti mentioned that the Kings had Connor Hellebuyck earmarked for pick #151 in 2012 (and this was before he established himself as a Vezina guy) but Winnipeg grabbed him at #130. LA would end up taking Connor Miller.

Yannetti wasn't hired by LA until 2007, but a cautionary tale happened in 2006 with LA. Dean Lombardi had just been hired as GM and he inherited a team with a bunch of young forwards but nothing on defense. Lombardi had been on the pro scouting side for the Flyers the previous season, so he didn't have a ton of knowledge about the 2006 draft prospects. He gave the scouts autonomy for their first two picks (Jonathan Bernier / Trevor Lewis) but apparently Lombardi vetoed the scouts who wanted Milan Lucic at #48. Lombardi ordered them to take a defenseman instead (they took Joe Ryan).

A different Kings blogger mentioned that LA's scouts implored Lombardi to trade up for Ryan O'Reilly in 2009 as he was dropping. Apparently a trade up was possible but it required the Kings giving up #35 and Lombardi had already penciled in Kyle Clifford with that pick. I always wondered if forcing the Clifford pick had any relation to passing on Lucic who had a breakout season in 2008-09.

There was a CBA snafu at the end of the 2009 Draft for LA. The scouts wanted to take Radko Gudas with their 7th round pick. The previous year, Martin Jones went undrafted but LA signed him after the draft since there's a window to sign undrafted guys with draft eligibility as long as they had played a season in North America during a draft year. LA's CBA guru Jeff Solomon misunderstood that rule. Gudas was set to play in the WHL in 2009-10 but hadn't yet which meant that he was ineligible to be signed like Jones. Solomon told the table to draft somebody else and incorrectly told them they could target Gudas after the draft. LA had Gudas as a summer camp invite but he'd go in the 3rd round in 2010. Former Kings assistant GM Mike Futa said the scouts would jokingly give Solomon flack about that.

And then LA traded their 2015 1st to get Milan Lucic. Had they kept it, Matt Barzal would have been their pick. At least for me, kinda funny to see Dean Lombardi missing out on O'Reilly/Barzal because he wouldn't let the scouts take Lucic as they wanted in 2006.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the Alex Turcotte pick in 2019 apparently was a Rob Blake decision to overrule the scouts. Not sure who the scouts would have picked but some implication was that they preferred Trevor Zegras.
 
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NHL scouts keep opinions in their circles and aren't too forthcoming with their thoughts. I doubt the best scouts are known by many if not any people on this forum.

I would say the best publicly known scouts are the ones that have a strong track record and converse with real NHL scouts. I think Mckegg from Recrutes and the guys from hockeyprospect are the best at analyzing individual players and putting them in some sort of ranking. A lot of their sleepers always get drafted much higher than expected.
 
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Carolina had a pretty good stretch with Bert Marshall running their amateur scouting (~2010 to 2019)

among the day 2 finds at that time:
Justin Faulk
Freddy Andersen
Jaccob Slavin
Brett Pesce
Alex Nedeljkovic
Warren Foegele
Sebastian Aho
Nic Roy
Steven Lorentz
Eetu Luostarinen
Morgan Geekie
Jack Drury
Pyotr Kochetkov

not all the selections are on him specifically since (IIRC) he was mostly scouting the NA side of things, but that's still a ridiculous number of NHL regulars, some of them high level contributors, that he hit on during that decade timeframe.
 
Brodeur said:
I do like that Yannetti will do podcasts and he'll leave some fun tidbits. Several years back, I was listening to one where the host asked him about a time when they got sniped on a pick. Yannetti mentioned that the Kings had Connor Hellebuyck earmarked for pick #151 in 2012 (and this was before he established himself as a Vezina guy) but Winnipeg grabbed him at #130. LA would end up taking Connor Miller.

Yannetti wasn't hired by LA until 2007, but a cautionary tale happened in 2006 with LA. Dean Lombardi had just been hired as GM and he inherited a team with a bunch of young forwards but nothing on defense. Lombardi had been on the pro scouting side for the Flyers the previous season, so he didn't have a ton of knowledge about the 2006 draft prospects. He gave the scouts autonomy for their first two picks (Jonathan Bernier / Trevor Lewis) but apparently Lombardi vetoed the scouts who wanted Milan Lucic at #48. Lombardi ordered them to take a defenseman instead (they took Joe Ryan).

A different Kings blogger mentioned that LA's scouts implored Lombardi to trade up for Ryan O'Reilly in 2009 as he was dropping. Apparently a trade up was possible but it required the Kings giving up #35 and Lombardi had already penciled in Kyle Clifford with that pick. I always wondered if forcing the Clifford pick had any relation to passing on Lucic who had a breakout season in 2008-09.

There was a CBA snafu at the end of the 2009 Draft for LA. The scouts wanted to take Radko Gudas with their 7th round pick. The previous year, Martin Jones went undrafted but LA signed him after the draft since there's a window to sign undrafted guys with draft eligibility as long as they had played a season in North America during a draft year. LA's CBA guru Jeff Solomon misunderstood that rule. Gudas was set to play in the WHL in 2009-10 but hadn't yet which meant that he he ineligible to be signed like Jones. Solomon told the table to draft somebody else and incorrectly told them they could target Gudas after the draft. LA had Gudas as a summer camp invite but he'd go in the 3rd round in 2010. Former Kings assistant GM Mike Futa said the scouts would jokingly give Solomon flack about that.

And then LA traded their 2015 1st to get Milan Lucic. Had they kept it, Matt Barzal would have been their pick. At least for me, kinda funny to see Dean Lombardi missing out on O'Reilly/Barzal because he wouldn't let the scouts take Lucic as they wanted in 2006.
Click to expand...
Also a real one for going to bat publicly for Brandt Clarke after he got cut by Dave Cameron:

www.eliteprospects.com

"It's not a hockey decision": Mark Yannetti sounds off on Brandt Clarke's absence from Team Canada's World Junior camp roster

Sportsnet's Jeff Marek reported today that Brandt Clarke would be left off of Team Canada's camp roster for the 2022 World Juniors. LA Kings Dir. of Amateur Scouting Mark Yannetti shares his thoughts on the move.
www.eliteprospects.com www.eliteprospects.com
 
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Tommy Bergman! Late round Swedish pick king for the leafs.

None of these guys are all star, but his late round draft record of getting an nhler late is impressive.

Anton Stralman - 7th Round Pick - 938 NHL games, and was a really solid top 4 guy for most of his career.
Carl Gunnarsson - 7th Round Pick - 629 NHL games, most of it as a top 4 defensive guy.
Victor Stalberg - 6th Round Pick - Nearly 500 NHL games, a 43 point season.
Andreas Johnsson - 7th Round Pick - A couple 40 point seasons
Pierre Engvall - 7th round pick - Nearly 400 NHL games,
Pontus Holmberg - 6th Round Pick - Coming around 200 games now.
Even Steffan Kronwall and Viktor Loov got games as 9th round and 7th round picks respectively.

Guy hardly ever missed.
 
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